By Alka Subramanian | Executive Director
Rationale for Eradicating Malaria
Working to end infectious diseases like malaria is vital if we are to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Preventing malaria, in addition to saving precious lives, provides countries huge economic benefits by freeing up scarce resources for developmental projects, improving worker productivity, and increasing school attendance. In addition, it is important to keep young children safe from malaria as they haven’t yet developed the immunity needed to prevent malaria from progressing to a severe, life-threatening stage.
Zambian Response to Malaria
Zambia has set a lofty goal of eliminating malaria by 2021 and is making huge strides toward this goal. Since July 2017, the Medicines for Malaria Venture and the Zambia National Malaria Elimination Centre have been working together to improve severe malaria case management. These organizations are using bicycle ambulances, an innovative approach, to ensure timely treatment for children severely ill with malaria. This new approach is saving lives.
Our Response to Malaria
Globally, we lose a child under five years of age every two minutes to malaria even though this disease is both preventable and curable. Since a child’s immunity is not fully developed, malaria can be life threatening for young children, children living with HIV, and for HIV+ pregnant women. Child-friendly antimalarials are available, but those medicines are still not reaching the children that need them. In 2015, in Sub-Saharan Africa, only 1 in 5 children younger than 5 years old with malaria infection and fever were treated with a World Health Organization-recommended first-line treatment. Even fewer receive a quality-assured, child-friendly version. Prevention is always a better option than treatment, but in the case of young children and children living with HIV, prevention saves lives.
Insecticide Treated Nets: According to the WHO, sleeping under a mosquito bed net regularly is the most cost-effective method of malaria prevention. Each net can sleep up to four young children or two adults. Accordingly, we provided 5000 long lasting insecticide treated nets and education to children and families in Lusaka, Zambia in the first six months of 2019. If children do not get contract malaria, their immune system gets stronger, they stay healthy and miss fewer days from school. The provision of education, in addition to nets, significantly increases the chances of beneficiary families not contracting malaria
Plan for the next six months: Our goal is to provide an additional 5000-6000 nets in the next five months. Provision of 10,000 nets in 2019, will keep 20,000 adults or 40,000 young children malaria free.
Malaria Can Be Eradicated
With collective global effort, it is possible to end malaria in the next few years.
Thanks for giving the gift of health to thousands of vulnerable children and their families.
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